On alert at Camp Bisco

Our opinion: Grave concerns about safety are raised at an annual music festival in Duanesburg. Health and safety have to come before the thrills of cutting-edge entertainment.

We must confess to being a generation too old to be lured in the upstate countryside for a long weekend of electronic music. But truly, we have no problem with anyone who finds that appealing. We even feel a bit of longing for our own younger days.

Our abiding concern as the Camp Bisco music festival begins Thursday in Duanesburg is that even especially boisterous fun needs to be safe fun. Come Monday, all the talk and all the rage should be about the music — not the casualty toll.

The scary reality is that the annual summer revelry and bacchanalia out at the Indian Lookout Country Club is more notable for all the people who have been hospitalized — and in one incident, killed — than for the entertainment that bands like The Disco Biscuits provide.

Just think about this: The partying at Camp Bisco apparently sends kids off to hospital emergency rooms with greater frequency than, say, concerts by Phish and other bands. To be alarmed by that hardly qualifies as unhip.

It’s reassuring, up to a point, to hear Frank Potter, who owns the 200-acre concert site, say that 50 EMTs and a doctor will be on hand for this year’s event. The question is whether that’s enough for somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people, many of whom will be drinking and some of whom will be using so-called recreational drugs.

But it’s insulting to hear festival spokesman Chad David Shearer talk about a zero-tolerance attitude toward drugs. His own words — that the people in attendance should know where to go for medical help — underscores what nonsense that is.

It would be futile to try to completely stop excessive drinking and purge all drugs from a music festival like this. The issue at Camp Bisco is one of excess — especially regarding some of the more dangerous drugs that are sold and consumed there — and it’s all the worse because of the festival organizers’ refusal to allow the police on to the grounds and rely instead on members of a motorcycle gang to provide security.

The State Police and Schenectady County sheriff’s deputies should be empowered to use their professional discretion. So should EMTs from nearby police and rescue squads.

That’s not an invitation, necessarily, for wide-scale drug busts or other sweeping crackdowns on attendees’ behavior. But it is a recognition of a larger, societal responsibility when a music festival is on its way to becoming a public health menace.

“If lives are being lost, you have to say, is it worth this,” says Dr. Roger Barrowman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady.

It’s up to the kids flocking to Duanesburg for the next few days, and to the adults who both organize and profit from the festive times there, to send a very different statement. It’s up to them, and to the public officials and authorities who are all too well aware of the potential for tragedy.

To borrow the lyrics of the different music of a bygone generation:

“And you, of the tender years, can’t know the fears, that your elders grew by.”

That of tens of thousands of revelers only one has died is a testament to the responsibility of those involved. Having attended my share of these types of festivals, I can say with confidence that there is a great sense of community and a corresponding tendency to look out for one another. The average ‘club’ in the city is considerably less safe and significantly more polluted with hard drugs than any EDM or jam festival.

I just feel like the person who wrote this has no idea who the people who run the ILCC are. “Members of a motorcycle gang to provide security” ,are you kidding me? This is as far from the truth as one can get. i get that this is an opinion piece, but to write for someone like the Times Union you would think fact checking would be involved.

To THE Editor: I am responding to a recent editorial that I read in your paper last week. I am the Chief of Staff for the Harley Rendezvous and ILCC. I have had the honor of holding this position since 1991, and before that, regular Staff since 1985. I have seen the controversies come and go over the years. First it was the community’s misperception of Bikers holding a rally once a year, and now the” controversy baiting” of your news paper over the safety of attendees at Camp Bisco. I am greatly offended by your referencing my Staff and myself as a “motorcycle gang”. Our Staff come from all over the country to be a part of a team that tries to do it right, and a great event. Many of them also volunteer to help during other events held at ILCC, for the same reasons. We work this event because we care about our home, and want to keep these kids safe as best can be done. You can’t prevent ALL the tragedies that take place every day such as they do in your city of Schenectady. People make bad choices every day, and sometimes they suffer for it. How many drug related crimes happened there last week in Schenectady? I can assure you that we at ILCC do more, and are more effective in our efforts to curtail drug use and violence than your paper. We have been searching vehicles and packages coming onto the grounds since before the Govt. woke up after 9/11. Unfortunately ideologs like you would rather surrender your liberties for safety, thus waving the proverbial White Flag of surrender to the Terrorists or anyone else wishing to disrupt our way of life. There must be a balance between safety and freedoms, and I and my Staff would rather side on that of freedom and individual responsibilities, and we have a great record of doing just that. The Staff at ILCC are a family, dedicated to what the Harley Rendezvous represents, and the freedoms afforded to those on our land. Because we work well together and yes sometimes with tough love, do in fact keep the people who come to ILCC safe, treat others with the respect they deserve, and look out for each other and respect everyone’s right to assemble, pursue happiness, and be left alone. Just because a large group of guys who ride motorcycles and share a common lifestyle, and join together to help others or enjoy themselves, doesn’t automatically make them a club or a gang. You don’t know the people who comprise the Staff at ILCC, and have no right to insult them and categorize them using a common term for bad groups of street thugs and alike. Your ignorance of what we are about and who we are individually, and collectively, is obvious. The Staff of ILCC would like a printed apology, and shame on you for passing judgment without knowing all the facts and painting a large group of individuals with an even larger broad brush, doesn’t seem American to me.
Frank DeCota
Chief of Staff
Harley Rendezvous Classic
Indian Lookout Country Club
1142 Batter St.
Pattersonville, NY 12137

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